The New York Observer, August 12th, 2005
Enough actual coverage of the Senate race. Time for some quick coverage of the coverage.
In an ordinary campaign, there might be some benefit to the wave of bad news that's washed around Jeanine Pirro on her first week. A bad press conference is never a good thing; the ransacking of dirty laundry is messy -- and wait for the Sunday stories! -- but in another campaign it might die down. Pirro, you might say, is getting all this stuff over with early.
The problem here is that the coverage will come in waves. We in the city and state press are poring over Pirro's life now. After this November, the national political press will increasingly focus on this election. The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal will start offering occasional dispatches, going back over the Pirro tax trial, and turning up the occasional new angle. Newsweek and Time will do serious reporting on Al Pirro's legal problems.
As next summer approaches, every paper in America, television, and radio will start to focus in, redoing the same old stories with new interest, asking the same questions at press conferences that the local press might have tired of. There's just no end in sight.
Thinking back to my interview with Pirro a few months ago, and to her press conference this week, it's unclear how prepared she is for this intense scrutiny. In the interview, I suggested that she might see a picture of her husband next to Bill Clinton on the cover of Newsweek. She laughed at the idea, and didn't seem to think such a thing was particularly likely.
